The visual ad format OpenAI announced a month ago for ChatGPT image generation appears to be live. Users generating an image in ChatGPT now see an ad under the headline "Here's an ad while we create your image," which disappears once the image is ready.

The format was first spotted on November 10 by Juozas Kaziukėnas, who noted his conversation had nothing to do with the advertised product, and Search Engine Roundtable was able to replicate the ad in ChatGPT itself. It follows OpenAI's October announcement that it would test visual ads during image generation, starting with free-tier US users.

For ChatGPT users, this is the ads business arriving in the middle of a core creative task rather than beside search-style answers. OpenAI has not yet said how widely the format is rolling out or which plans see it.